A Glomping Ranter
by Silenthunder
Summary: Za'kiir and Natalie of the PPC must deal with Ratty, a rat OC who only knows one thing: that she loves Cluny!


**AN: The PPC was created by Jay and Acacia. The Badfic is the work of RattytheScourge. Redwall was created by the late but great author Brian Jacques. I only own my agents. My thanks to Voyd and The Irish Samurai for beta-ing.**

[BEEP! BEEP! BEE-]

"AAAAHHHH!"

Za'kiir burst into Response Center 2398, fur bristling in worry at the chilling scream. His partner had tumbled out of her chair and was lying curled up on the floor. The Khajiit was kneeling at her side in an instant. "What's wrong, Natalie?" He received only incoherent stammering as a response. "Natalie!" There was still no reaction except violent trembling as the human continued to stare straight ahead in horror, still mumbling nonsense.

There was only one thing to do. "Khajiit is sorry, but this must be done." Za'kiir took a deep breath, steeled himself, and slapped his partner lightly on the face.

That snapped her out of it. She managed to sit up, but the fear was still plain in her eyes. "Th-thanks."

"What happened to you?" he asked, tightly grasping her shoulders to keep her from falling. "The console was beeping, and..." He trailed off, waiting for her to fill in the details.

"It's - it's _awful_ ," she whispered.

Za'kiir glanced up at the console screen, then back at her. "The Intelligence Report?"

She shook her head.

"Oh. You mean the Badfic, yes?"

She nodded dumbly. Za'kiir rose from his kneeling position and went to stand before the now silent console. He looked curiously at the first few sentences of the Report. "The _Redwall_ continuum?"

Natalie stood, breathing deeply to try to calm down. "Yeah. You remember that, don't you? Those books where mice and otters and other creatures live in Redwall Abbey and need to defend it from rats and weasels and vermin like that. It's one of my favorite series."

"Yes. Za'kiir still does not appreciate that the cats are portrayed as evil. Although, this one did enjoy the character of Gingivere Greeneyes. He was innocent and yet accused, like the Khajiit so often are. A noble feline, indeed."

There was a few minutes of silence as he skimmed the Report, then the Khajiit finally spoke, surprise in his voice. "She named her rat original character _Ratty_?"

"That's not the worst of it." Natalie had started gathering the necessities. "Okay… Let me see. A weapon or two, the neuralyzer, and _especially_ Bleepka and Bleepolate. Oh, and the First-Person Dummy. Could you inflate the First-Person Dummy, Za'kiir?"

"Of course. Should we bring anything else?"

"This Badfic goes by too quickly for that. There's no real indication of time, so we'll be in and out. And trust me, you won't want to eat anything that's too filling by the time this is over."

* * *

Once they had pushed the dummy out into the badfic, the agents waited for a moment before entering it themselves. Za'kiir had preferred the wildcat form, but upon being told that there had been no wildcats in Cluny's Horde, he had settled with the guise of a ferret, while his partner was currently a weasel, and thus shorter in height.

" 'Ow does Khajiit look?" he asked.

She looked him over before giving a verdict. "You ain't lookin' like a pushover, that's for certain."

He gave a smile of satisfaction, but confusion quickly replaced it. "Why're you talkin'-" His eyes widened and he clapped a paw over his mouth, then removed it, speaking slowly at first as if trying to get used to his voice. "Why're _we_ talkin' like this?"

"Vermin talk comes with the disguises."

"Well… At least yer still shorter than me."

" 'Ey!" She slapped him lightly on the arm in indignation. "At least I'm inna rhyme. It goes, uh… 'A weasel is weasily recognizable, and a stoat is stoatally different.' "

"That ain't very 'elpful."

"True."

" 'Ey, are those clouds supposed t'be there?"

She looked up at the sky with him, unable to miss the dark storm clouds moving in fast. Too fast. "I don't think so…"

The dummy suddenly started changing as the Sue-Wraith took over it. She shrunk to the supposed size of a rat, gaining the general features of a rat, but nothing else. Her fur and eye color remained a Generic Gray as those parts of the character were never described. The storm clouds were now directly over her and the agents, rumbling with thunder.

And then Ratty spoke.

 **I never knew that it kills My poor heart, wait, do not knock so like you want to escape from the chest ..**

Something dropped from the sky - no, two somethings. They were flat (and perfectly round) stones. "What're these?" Za'kiir wondered, holding one of them in a paw. As the Sue continued speaking, more of the round stones and a stone that resembled a bird's head dropped from the clouds.

Natalie's eyes widened in realization as she scanned the Words. "Missin' punctuation marks - those're periods and a comma!"

A balcony spawned out of nowhere so that Ratty and her family could stand on it, watching Cluny the Scourge and Redtooth on the ground below. According to bad spelling, every character there was somehow reading the articles of surrender.

" 'Ey, that balcony should really be the Abbey," Natalie realized, and she noted the charge. "The Scourge only read the articles of surrender there. 'E recruited 'is army by force."

Ratty continued to rant about how she should hate Cluny, but she loved him so much, and his rough voice was like music, and she swooned when he came close to her (despite the fact she was on a balcony), and…

Za'kiir groaned as he held his aching head. "Make it stop, _make 'er stop_ …"

Natalie ducked under the balcony after him for cover from the punctuation-rain that was now falling heavily. They didn't know if those stones would hurt them or not, but they weren't going to take chances. She handed him a canteen of Bleepka and patted him on the shoulder. "It'll be over soon; I promise." She took a moment to eat a mouthful of Bleepolate to prevent her own headache from getting too painful. "Just tell yerself not to feel sick yet an' focus on the mission."

Ratty promptly deserted her family to follow Cluny, glad he had taken over her house and kin. Her first coherent sentence was born: **I love you, Cluny!** Quotation marks landed on the ground to accompany the giant mass of periods, commas, and question marks that blanketed the grass. A palace - which accordingly spawned to accompany the balcony - was robbed, and Cluny grabbed for a random leg as Ratty begged him to take her with him.

 **" One - two - three - four .. a deep breath to calm down .. Im crazy and has no regret about it. what you have muscular legs .. nine to ten Well, let me despise everything, damn me to them twenty-twenty-one. I love you, Clooney!**

The mini-Deepcoiler Clooney wriggled over to the agents for refuge as the ranting rat continued. Natalie stroked him lightly. " 'Ey, this 'un ain't a bad lookin' 'Coiler."

Za'kiir shuddered - he hated snakes and anything that looked like them. "If you say so."

A time-warp appeared out of the blue and dragged the pair onto a ship that Cluny, Ratty and the rest were sailing on.

"Almost there!" Za'kiir exclaimed upon a very brief glance at the Words. Once again he had to force his nausea down.

They watched with satisfaction as Cheesethief gave the Sue a slap across the face. Then they were once more dragged by a time-warp, this time to Cluny's ride on the hay cart. Ratty was going to be left behind, but Cluny decided to bring **"[his] toy"** along. Za'kiir felt sick at seeing the Warlord, who would _never_ be the type to have a slave, much less one like Ratty was suggesting, say that.

As another time warp took them past the battle of Redwall with a brief mention of foxes ( _Poor Chickenhound and Sela, to be forgotten like this,_ Natalie thought) and the birth of Clny, it dumped them in a Generic Area where Ratty was demanding to know where Cluny was buried. Upon being told where his tomb was, Ratty went into full-blown wangst to top her previous wails off as the punctuation-storm continued.

 **I broke .. Tears flow from my eyes and they no longer stop ..I think that death is sitting next to me, so cold to me .. Why should I go now? I love you, Cluny! Oh, Cluny, Cluny, even the flowers do not grow on your tomb!**

"We gotta stop this, storm or no storm," Za'kiir hissed through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, let's go-"

But before they could take three steps forward, Cluny suddenly appeared back from the dead, declaring to Ratty that no one could kill him.

Anything else he might have said was cut off by a shrill war-cry of "Redwaaaaaall!" as the two agents charged the vermin with drawn weapons. Cluny was knocked out by a blow to the chin from Za'kiir, and Ratty was knocked to the ground by Natalie, who stood over the Sue with a dirk at her throat. With the female rat temporarily speechless from shock, the storm had ceased for the moment.

"Ratty, yer charged with bein' a Mary-Sue, havin' a stupid name, horribly manglin' the English language, creatin' a punctuation storm, messin' about with what little timeline there was, throwin' the plot of _Redwall_ out the window, wangstin' constantly, givin' the position o' Redwall Abbot the new title o' rector, the creation o' two mini-Deepcoilers, turnin' Redwall Abbey into a palace with a balcony, breakin' the law of gravity by lettin' said balcony 'ang freely in the air, glompin' Cluny the Scourge, turnin' Cluny OOC, givin' Cluny a tomb, an' makin' him come back to life. Oh, an' makin' us ready to puke in a few minutes - don't think about it, Za'kiir! Anyway, yer sentenced to immediate death, and you don't get to say any last words!"

The Khajiit came over, carrying a comma from the storm. Snarling, he forcefully brought the carved stone down upon Ratty's head, killing her instantly. The dummy went limp as the Sue-Wraith departed from it. Natalie gave a sigh of relief. "Finally!"

A groan interrupted them. They turned to see Cluny now awake, holding his throbbing chin and looking very annoyed. "What happened…?" he asked, blinking hard as he glared at the two vermin standing before him, slowly coming out of Sueflence. "Who are you?"

"Only allies, Lord," Za'kiir replied, his paw slowly inching for the neuralyzer tucked into his belt. "Only some o' yer faithful followers…"

"Is that so? What are your names?"

His paw landed on the neuralyzer and he whipped it out instantly. Both agents closed their eyes tightly as he activated the small silver tool.

 _Flash._

"You never met Ratty or us in yer life," Natalie told the dazed Warlord. "You battled against Redwall Abbey and conquered it a few hours ago." She took out a remote activator and zapped up a portal. "So just walk into that shiny purple circle, and you'll go battle some stupid rebel like yer supposed to. Go on, Chief."

As soon as the neuralyzer was deactivated, Cluny groggily got up and stumbled into the portal, which closed behind him. The agents set to folding the dummy back up into a cube.

"Two questions. Where will that portal take 'im, and why did 'e speak normally?" Za'kiir asked as he picked up the cube.

"Mr. Jacques didn't give 'im an accent like we got. I set the portal to PhysFic. 'E'll need the recovery, the poor rat. Cummon, let's get 'ome and get the Bleepstuff out. I feel sick."

* * *

"You were right," the Khajiit moaned, downing his third round of Bleepka like there was no tomorrow. "That Badfic was aaaawful…" He grabbed a paper bag nearby and hacked a hairball into it, adding to the stinking pile of what else had been emptied from their sick stomachs. "Those time warps were horrible, ab-so-lute-ly horrible…"

"Hopefully, we can have a break," Natalie said, nibbling on some Bleepolate.

Za'kiir hiccuped, an odd sound for a Khajiit to make. "This - _hic!_ \- this one hopes so." He drained off his mug and sluggishly reached for the pitcher again, but was unable to properly grab the handle. "We can tackle whatever they throw at us, eh? Take that and that and-" He threw a lazy punch that hit nothing, and grinned foolishly. "Eh… Must be my bad arm."

Natalie stood up, the sugar rush caused by the Bleepolate giving her too much energy to rest. "C'mon, Za'kiir. You should get some sleep."

He nodded dumbly, eyes drooping as he managed to stand, leaning on his friend as she guided him to his bed. "A good idea, very good. Sleep, yes, very very very good. Za'kiir just needs to sleep and sleep and sleep." He stopped to give a huge yawn before continuing. "The whole day through! And then the missions will not matter anymore…"

"C'mon, you big furball, this way. Get into bed, that's it. And don't worry about the console; I'll make sure it doesn't bother you."

"Thanks, Naaatalie. Stupid console, beep beep beep all the time…"

"Sshhh, go to sleep. Good Khajiit, good boy. That's it, close your eyes. Good night."

Barely had Natalie returned from disposing of the paper bag when the console decided to start beeping. The human walked over to it and whispered furiously, "Would you be quiet?!"

[BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!]

A quick, anxious glance over her shoulder showed that the noise had not awakened the slumbering Khajiit, but there was still a possibility that it could happen. "Would you be quiet, please? Please? Za'kiir's sleeping off some Bleepka, so..."

[BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!]

"Look, if you don't shut up, I'll smash the screen in right now, and I don't care what happens to me if I do it."

The console shut up.

"Thanks. Give us two hours, okay?"

And with that, Natalie curled up on the soft red sofa, letting sleep claim her too for just a brief while before they continued their jobs…

[BEEPTIME'SUPBEEP!]

"AAAARRRGGGHH!"


End file.
